


i know that i can't make you stay

by bisexualdeanwinchester



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, M/M, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Past Drug Use, except not
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-06-05 14:26:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6708367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bisexualdeanwinchester/pseuds/bisexualdeanwinchester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"i'm ten," gerard clarifies. </p><p>frank sees his chance and takes it. "i'm ten too," the younger boy replies, puffing out his chest. </p><p>"no way," gerard says, squinting at him. " you're too small to be ten. how old are you really?" </p><p>"six," frank admits, his shoulders drooping. </p><p>"well, you're too young to be my friend," muses gerard. "but mikey is six too. maybe you could be friends with him." </p><p>frank's puzzled. "why can't we be friends?" </p><p>"you'll understand when you're older."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so I wrote this awhile ago and never got around to posting it but here it is
> 
> (i'm writing more for it so stay tuned, kay?)

frank's first time on the playground as an official first-grader, he runs smack into someone. they both go down, still not in enough control of their limbs to stop themselves from falling. 

"sorry! i should have been more careful," the stranger says, standing up. 

frank is mystified. this is probably the prettiest person he's ever seen, and he doesn't even know whether they're a boy or a girl. 

they have pretty little chubby cheeks, big, round eyes, and a tiny little nose. frank is stunned. 

"lemme help you up." 

frank takes their hand and allows them to pull him up, still staring. 

"what's your name?" 

"i'm frank." 

"i'm gerard. i like your name," they tell him earnestly. 

frank blushes. "thank you." 

"do you know mikey? i'm his big brother," gerard says. 

so gerard is a boy. 

"uh-huh." frank is pretty sure there's a boy named mikey in his class, but he doesn't want to let gerard know he's only in first grade. 

"i love mikey lots. he's like... he's like my baby. if I was old enough to have a baby, anyway." he giggles suddenly, and frank can't help but laugh too. gerard's laugh is like a yawn, he thinks, or maybe a sneeze. he does it, and you can't help but do it too. ('contagious' is too big of a word for him to remember, though he's heard it once or twice.) 

"i'm ten," gerard clarifies. "too small for a baby." 

frank sees his chance and takes it. "i'm ten too," the younger boy replies, puffing out his chest. 

"no way," gerard says, squinting at him. " you're too small to be ten. how old are you really?" 

"six," frank admits, his shoulders drooping. 

"well, you're too young to be my friend," muses gerard. "but mikey is six too. maybe you could be friends with him." 

frank's puzzled. "why can't we be friends?" 

"you'll understand when you're older." 

and that is how ten-year-old gerard way becomes an enigma (at least to frank). 

he does wind up friends with mikey. best friends, actually. 

frank never mentions gerard to mikey, choosing instead to base their friendship off a mutual love for star wars. 

they play together at recess and convince their moms to let them have a weekly playdate. 

gerard never makes an appearance whenever frank is at mikey's house to play. 

 

he's nice enough to frank as the years pass, acknowledging him with a small smile when he's hanging around the house, but never really interacts with him. frank's pretty sure he could count their number of conversations on one hand. 

he and mikey spend most of their time at the way house, playing halo and eating junk food. 

somewhere around his fifteenth birthday, gerard goes into his shell and doesn't really come out; he loses himself in his art and spends more and more time locked in his room. 

everyone blames it on teenage hormones and says it's a phase that'll pass. frank still just wants to be the guy's friend. 

gerard is a mystery in frank's otherwise predictable life, and that's why he wants to befriend him so badly. at least, that's what he tells himself. 

 

gerard at twenty is an interesting collection of snapshots: a mop of tangled hair (with color prone to change at any given time), twitchy hands, and a cigarette dangling from his lips at all times. 

frank has given up on being his friend as it's been pretty clear he doesn't want any right now. 

something's changed between them though. frank can't pinpoint it exactly, but he senses it in the way gerard looks at him. 

he looks at gerard differently now too; sometime over the last few years gerard grew up, and frank has discovered that behind the dirty hair, a shockingly beautiful face is hidden. (maybe it's always been there, and frank himself had to grow up to see it.) 

he doesn't really know how to feel about all this. he tries to talk to mikey about it a few times, but he stumbles over his words so much he gives up. 

(it usually goes like this: 

"mikey?" 

Mikey makes a grunting noise as a signal for him to go on, turning a page in doom patrol. 

"is gerard- do you think he's- something's diff- I think-" he sighs, frustrated. "never mind.") 

gerard comes home one night, much later than usual, trying and failing to be quiet. 

frank, who was camped in the living room with mikey most of the day while they marathoned next generation (and accidentally downed three shots of espresso in one go an hour earlier), accidentally meets his eyes. 

they stare at each other for a moment across the room. frank lifts a hand in halfhearted acknowledgement, and a small, unconscious smile is just beginning to curl across gerard's thin lips when he shakes his head and bolts down the stairs to his basement. frank is left even more confused. 

he lies awake the rest of the night, listening to mikey's faint snoring and thinking about gerard's tiny teeth. 

 

he's no longer beautiful. it's sad, really, that his beauty got lost somewhere amidst the booze and strangers and pills. but that's the price he's paid for his version of sanity. 

nearly thirty and still living at home, gerard's parents keep pretty good tabs on him, but since he and mikey's grandmother died, he stumbles home at all hours of the night, glares at anyone who tries to speak to him that isn't his parents or mikey (the first time he looked at frank like that, it felt like a punch to the gut), and hasn't so much as touched a canvas in months. 

frank, along with the entire way household, is very concerned. even if the guy has never been his closest friend, he's like an odd (albeit distant) family member, and so frank feels an obligation to do something. 

donna decides to stage an intervention, but gerard has stopped coming home at all. 

none of them really know what to make of the gerard they have now. especially frank. 

he crawls through mikey's window one early morning in tears. 

frank happened to be sleeping over (he and mikey had come home for a few days for the funeral) and is perched on the top bunk, unsure of what to do. he chances a peek and takes in gerard. 

he's not wearing a hoodie for protection like usual, which is bad enough, but there's a lilac bruise flowering over the delicate skin of his arm, and frank's willing to bet there's more hidden from view. mikey wakes up then, sensing gerard. he jams his glasses back onto his face and immediately goes into brother mode, rubbing gerard's back and makes soft noises at him until he's calmed down enough to speak. 

the room (and the world too, it seems) is so quiet frank can hear gerard's whimpers and eventually his words, whispered into mikey's shoulder. 

"i want to die, mikey. i can't do this." 

mikey shushes him firmly. 

"it's okay. you don't have to..." his words lapse into silence. 

(frank isn't sure what's going on and he's too afraid to look.) 

somehow, gerard makes it to dawn. 

mikey gets gerard to agree to going downstairs, but getting him to eat something takes some convincing. (they pretend not to see gerard dump something from a flask into his coffee, content that he's home.) frank isn't too sure what to do, but something in his best friend's expression tells him he's not going anywhere. 

 

gerard's sober, has been for a year now. 

frank's not too sure how to interact with him. 

if he's honest with himself, he never really has. but this version of gerard, not the adorably pretentious ten-year-old, not the shy teenager nor the oddly pretty addict, but the happy, healthy gerard? this is someone frank thinks he could get to know. so he decides to try. 

he and mikey are visiting mikey's parents together. gerard's there too, drinking coffee in the kitchen and laughing with them. 

he looks up, sees frank, brushes a piece of hair behind his ear and smiles. there's a light in his eyes frank hasn't seen in years. (since he was a teenager, frank thinks. maybe longer.) mikey says something to his parents about looking at the legos in his old room, but he winks at frank as he leaves the room. 

"hey, frankie," gerard says, setting down his mug. 

"hey, gee." 

he wants to get to know gerard, he really does, but doesn't know what to say.

"how's it goin'?"

he shrugs. "it's goin'."

after a few moments of uneasy silence, gerard shifts and says, "listen... i, uh. i know i haven’t exactly been the best influence, or- or the best person to be around, but... i wanna change that. i- i want it to be like we're six and ten again. and this time i'll take you up on your offer of being friends." 

frank looks at him, really looks at him. maybe for the first time in almost twenty years. "i'd like that."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yikes it's been awhile hasn't it

frank's inner six-year-old couldn't be happier. it's great to finally be friends with gerard, better than he expected, actually. they hang out all the time and talk about star wars and evolution and doom patrol and the universe and it's awesome. 

frank as a grown up is really, really proud of gerard. he's got his life together now, has a job and everything. he even moved out of his parents' basement. 

his surprising beauty has returned, too, but that was a given. it never left, frank thinks now, looking back. just worn down by countless pills and bottles and nameless people. but now that he's sober, surrounded by positive influences, he's blossomed into the same extraordinarily pretty person he's been for all these years. (frank's not sure when he started thinking of gerard like a flower, but he doesn't really question it.) 

frank and mikey have gerard over for their monthly movie marathon at their apartment on gerard's night off (he works days and is going back to school at night. they're all totally proud of him). they spread out all over the living room: mikey stretched out across the couch, frank and gerard camped out on the floor. 

they watch in silence mostly, but a few times when frank glances over at gerard (old habits die hard, he guesses. gerard used to be such a flight risk), he's met with gerard's big eyes staring at him. 

"frank?" he whispers. 

frank blinks as a response. his brain, for some reason, won't move his mouth to form words. 

"how's life going?" 

mikey doesn't shush him, so frank assumes he's fallen asleep. Still, he whispers as he answers, "okay, i guess." 

"are you- happy?" he scoots a little closer to frank, almost unconsciously. 

“happy? i- i guess.”

“being happy is important, frankie,” gerard says earnestly. he moves even closer and brushes some of frank’s hair out of his eyes. “do you like your job? your hobbies? friends?”

frank is acutely aware of how close gerard is. “my job is… well, it's a job. not much to say for it. pays the bills. uh, mikey’s still my best friend, always will be. you too, of course.”

gerard smiles at that. he presses on and asks, “what about your hobbies? what do you like to do?”

his eyes are fixed firmly on frank. they're focused in a way they weren't for a long time, and for some reason it makes frank’s heart skip a beat.

“i- um, i play guitar? and i write, i guess.”

“have you ever thought about being in a band?”

“i had one, for a couple years, but…”

“but?”

he sighs and shifts uncomfortably. “i was the only one happy with what we were doing. the guys got tired of not going anywhere, said we’d never make it out of jersey. after awhile, i... i listened.”

gerard is silent, still staring like he expects more.

“i gave up on leaving and the band and… on a lot of stuff, i guess. haven't shaken the habit of playing guitar yet, but i suppose i will sooner or later.”

“you didn't give up on me.”

“what?”

“me, you never gave up on me. i was an ass to you for two fucking decades and you still held out hope that something would change. look what happened; you had faith in me, you kept that faith, and now we’re friends.”

“i don't get what that has to do with-”

“i’m saying, how many times did people tell you to give up on me? how often did you think i was a lost cause? and you stuck by me. so next time, don't listen to what other people say. listen to that big heart of yours, find your dream, and never let anyone tell you how your life is gonna be.”

(frank gets ‘keep the faith’ tattooed on his back a week later. gerard doesn't need to know.)


End file.
